1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to methods and systems for verifying compliance with a software interface standard.
2. Description of the Related Art
Currently, when a telecommunications carrier deploys a technology into operations, the entire system comprising hardware and software used to manage the technology is supplied by one or more equipment vendors. Generally, there are multiple vendors for a particular technology in use at any one time in a carrier network. This creates a situation where the carrier has to learn, design to, and manage several different vendor-specific software applications for a single technology.
Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA) as standardized by the Object Management Group (OMG) forum, is a framework for communications between software programs. In particular, CORBA provides for standard interfaces between Object Request Brokers (ORBs). CORBA interfaces are specified using OMG Interface Definition Language (IDL). A particular CORBA interface standard is defined in ITU-T Draft Recommendation Q.834.4. Vendors have committed to prototyping to the Q.834.4 interface.
FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing how, using Q.834.4, a carrier can build a single application to manage a technology implementation by multiple vendors. A carrier network 20 is comprised of one or more network elements 22 from a first vendor (Vendor A) combined with one or more network elements 24 from a second vendor (Vendor B). A first operator 26 manages the network elements 22 of Vendor A using an Element Management System (EMS) 28. Likewise, a second operator 30 manages the network elements 24 of Vendor B using an EMS 32. The first operator 26 is unable to manage the network elements 24 of Vendor B using the EMS 32 without acquiring additional skills. The second operator 30 is unable to manage the network elements 22 of Vendor A using the EMS 28.
If properly implemented, Q.834.4 interfaces enable a third operator 34 to manage the entire carrier network 20 with the same software application. In particular, the third operator 34 can efficiently manage all network resources in the network elements 20 and 22 using a carrier Network Management System (NMS) 36. The NMS 36 communicates with the EMS 28 and the EMS 32 using interfaces 38 and 40, that are instances of the same specification found in Q.834.4. Additionally, there are a myriad of higher level software applications that benefit from having a common interface with these vendor networks.
NMS interoperability is a long-term goal for large service providers. EMS vendors, being aware of the goal, supply software marketed as “CORBA Compliant” or with an “IDL Interface” with specific syntax and semantics. In some cases, the advertised interface claims to conform to some standardized interface definition, however these claims are not verified.